October 8, 19 14] 



NATURE 



149 



very many vessels and men to the dang^erous task of 

 mine-sweeping ; and with very great loyalty the fish- 

 ing trade in general has combined to keep prices as 

 low as possible. The herring fisheries are suffering 

 even more severely from the loss of their great con- 

 tinental markets for salted fish : it will be unfortunate 

 in every way if the yield of this industry should be 

 gravely diminished, and the only hope seems to be in 

 the securing of the normal stock of pickled herrings 

 for domestic use and future trade, by the State. The 

 Fisheries Organisation Society is an outcome of the 

 recently published report of the Inshore Fisheries 

 Committee : it aims at the further development of 

 the smaller sea and coastal fisheries by various 

 methods. Its offices are at Queen Anne's Chambers, 

 Tothill Street, Westminster. At no other time than 

 the present could this organisation be of greater ser- 

 vice to the country, and we hope that many of our 

 readers may be inclined to make themselves acquainted 

 with its work. 



We have received from Mr. Francis Edwards, of 83 

 High Street, Marylebone, W., a catalogue of "books 

 about birds," together with a certain number of pub- 

 lications of learned societies, the whole comprising 

 between two and three hundred items. 



According to the Victorian Naturalist for August, 

 an attempt is to be made to introduce the lyre-bird into 

 Tasmania. Mr. D. le Souef, who was consulted in 

 regard to the probable cost of the experiment, gave 

 the opinion that the birds could be trapped for about 

 5^. per pair, adding that suitable food during the 

 period of confinement could be supplied by the Mel- 

 bourne Zoological Gardens. 



Free-swimming nematode and littoral oligochaete 

 worms from the salt Chilka Lake, on the Orissa coast 

 of Bengal, form the subject of two articles, respectively 

 by Dr. F. H. Stewart and Major J. Stephenson, in 

 vol. X., part 4, of Records of the Indian Museum. All 

 the four genera of the former group found in the lake- 

 fauna are cosmopolitan, and for the most part marine 

 types; but at least four of the Chilka species, referable 

 to three genera, are regarded as new. 



In vol. ii., No. 5, of the Austral Avian Record, the 

 editor, Mr. G. M. Mathews, makes further emenda- 

 tions in his list of Australian birds. Among these may 

 be noted the creation of no fewer than a dozen new 

 generic names for various long-established species. To 

 many naturalists this will seem an altogether un- 

 necessary proceeding, and, in any case, such inelegant 

 and unwieldy compounds as Purnellornis, Alpha- 

 chlamydera, Alphacincla, and the like, are to be depre- 

 cated. 



To the October number of the Museums Journal 

 Dr. F. A. Bather contributes an instructive article on 

 museums and national service, in which special refer- 

 ence is made to the various branches of research work 

 now carried on at the Natural History Branch of the 

 British Museum. The amount of work of direct prac- 

 tical utility yearly accomplished there would, it is 

 claimed, surprise even those familiar with that estab- 

 lishment, attention being also directed to the cosmo- 



NO. 2345, VOL. 94] 



politan character of these researches. At present the 

 museum has not a health department, with special 

 facilities for bacteriological work and the practical 

 study of hygiene; but it is suggested that such an 

 addition would form an important extension of the 

 museum's already manifold functions. 



In connection with the above, reference may be 

 made to an article in the same issue by Mr. F. Lenev, 

 of the Norwich Museum, on the insurance of museums 

 and their contents against fire and damage from other 

 causes. The article formed the subject of a paper 

 read at the recent Museum Conference at Swansea, 

 where an instructive discussion took place at the close 

 of the reading. Metropolitan Government museums 

 are, we believe, uninsured, and the matter relates, 

 therefore, solely to local institutions. The usual prac- 

 tice, it appears, is to insure the buildings separately 

 from the collections, and generally against fire alone. 

 Loan collections are, however, habitually insured 

 against risks of all kinds. In the discussion. Dr. 

 Hoyle referred to the progressive appreciation in value 

 of many objects in museums, and the consequent auto- 

 matic under-insurance of collections. 



Bird-skins in museums, it appears, form a rich 

 hunting-ground for students of bird-lice (Mallophaga), 

 as those parasites are generally preserved with the 

 skins of the birds they infest. Advantage of this has 

 recently been taken in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, 

 where the store-skins of game-birds and the crow- 

 tribe have been carefully searched, and the dried para- 

 i sites picked out. The latter were sent to Prof. V. L. 

 Kellog, of Stanford University, California, by whom 

 and his colleague, Mr. J. H. Paine, the collection is 

 described in vol. x., part 4, of Records of the Indian 

 Museum. That the bird-lice found in any individual 

 kind of bird-skin are really native to that particular 

 species, appears, in most cases at any rate, to be 

 beyond doubt, and, as the result of their study of the 

 Calcutta collection, the authors of the paper have felt 

 themselves justified in describing no fewer than 

 thirteen species as new. 



The subject of " glazed frost " is always interest- 

 ing, owing to its somewhat rare occurrence, and 

 possibly to some extent to the uncertainty of part of 

 the physical process involved in its formation. The 

 term is now generally adopted for the smooth coating 

 of ice which covers objects, and is usually formed when 

 rain, consisting of super-cooled water drops, strikes 

 the ground or other objects, but may "very occasion- 

 ally " be formed in other ways. To the Journal of 

 the Meteorological Societ}^ of Japan for May last Dr. 

 T. Okada contributes some useful notes on the 

 phenomenon, and quotes cases of its occurrence in 

 that country, together with detailed observations. 

 His calculation shows that, in the case under con- 

 sideration, " the conduction and evaporation of rain- 

 drops falling through ice-cold layers of the atmosphere 

 will be sufficient to cool them many degrees below the 

 freezing point." As pointed out elsewhere by Mr. E. 

 Gold, the difficulty appears to be to explain why small 

 drops do not solidify in falling through the air. 



